Collision Theory
by Pemberly
Summary: Ed meets possibly the only other person in existence who can lay claim to being just as book obsessed, short-tempered and as hating of her father as he is.  Also, the only other person who has punched out a god.


Stuck in the parking lot underneath their apartment building, the petrol fumes were starting to make Maka feel dizzy. Her thighs were beginning to ache as well, as she was sitting on the uncomfortable metal bench welded with the wall. For God's sake, those two had been talking for over half an hour now! Surely there wasn't that much to say about a stupid motorbike! How could you stretch a conversation about what was, at its base, just a method of transportation for that amount of time?

The blonde girl said something and Soul got the same look on his face that he did when he was talking about music with Liz, the one where his eyes would light up and he would start fervently rattling on about jazz bars and obscure musicians, despite being normally quite taciturn. The girl's eyes were gleaming as well, and she was waving a large, silver wrench around enthusiastically, long hair swinging back and forth.

Maka felt her insides clench as the girl leant over the seat to tighten up something or other, blathering away as she did so. Soul never let her touch his bike.

Not that she was jealous, because that was ridiculous. She and Soul weren't enough of anything together for her to be _jealous_. True, the other girl was attractive, and it didn't hurt that she was attired in work coveralls pulled down to her waist and a black crop-top that really was about two-centimetres away from an indecent exposure conviction – not that she was being judgemental or anything. She did live with Blair, after all.

The thing with Blair, though, was that while she may have had the body, she couldn't capture Soul's attention quite like this girl could. He was hanging off her every word, head cocked slightly to one side as she explained the fuel tank or the handlebars or, or – well, Maka didn't really know enough about motorbikes to be sure exactly what she was explaining, but Soul did, and he looked interested.

The boy with long hair sitting next to Maka made a funny noise between his teeth, slumping down in his seat even more then he was already.

Crap. She had forgotten completely about him – Edward Elric, that was how he'd introduced himself - and they hadn't spoken for the half hour that she'd been watching her Weapon talk with a girl he barely knew. Well, the kid didn't exactly invite conversation, golden eyes glaring to the side and shoulders hunched, annoyed scowl residing on his face.

She should probably try to engage him in conversation, though. It seemed to be working out pretty well for Soul.

'So,' Edward's eyes flashed towards hers as she spoke, and she had a mental blank as to how normal people usually made small talk, '… what's your country like?'

He hesitated a little before shrugging his shoulders. 'It's kinda messed up at the moment. Recently overthrew the Führer, and tried to demilitarize the place, but the society's so firmly entrenched in its martial history that that's causing new uprisings. We've had all these factions form within the military itself, not to mention the whole Armstong-Mustang power struggle. Everything's in such disarray that we don't even know whom our new Führer is going to be. Setting up a democratic system will take too long at the moment, we need a leader _now_, but Mustang is too busy rebuilding Ishval and Armstrong had to return to Briggs with her men after Drachma tried to invade. Again.'

Well, ok then. She had expected a few short words about the climate or the food, but a brief summation of the complexities of a country coping after a coup d'état was fine as well.

'Is that why you're here, then? Trying to get away from the instability?'

'Nah.' He pushed himself up in his chair a little. 'It's actually not too bad there anymore, considering.'

'Considering what?'

'Considering that a few months ago everyone in the country had their soul stolen to be used to create a massive philosopher's stone.'

Ah. 'So, how come you came all the way out here?' Maka knew that she should stop asking questions, but she felt her curiosity rising with each word the boy spoke.

'I wanted to see the world outside of Amestris. I read that there were people here who can perform Alchemy that's unlike anything in Xing or Amestris, called 'magic'. Also,' he inclined his head towards the blonde now rummaging through her toolbox for something or other 'Winry heard that there are people here who can turn themselves into pieces of automail weaponry at will.'

Maka felt the urge to correct him about 'automail' or whatever, but quashed it down. 'Is she your girlfriend?' she asked instead.

Edward's eyes suddenly widened and he sat up completely straight, shoulders tense. 'What! No! She's just my childhood friend and mech-!' He broke off abruptly, and his face cleared as though something was just dawning on him. 'Actually, I guess she kind of is my girlfriend now.' He gave a small laugh. 'Weird. Guess old habits die hard.'

'I see.' she said, although she really didn't. Best to change the subject. 'You shouldn't go looking for magic, by the way.'

The pleased smile that graced Edward's lips dissolved. 'Why not?'

'The only people who can use it are witches, and they're pretty much all evil. I mean, there is Kim and Angela, but if you mess with any of the others you'll probably just end up getting killed.'

'What? Why?'

Maka shrugged. 'I don't know, everyone just knows that witches are evil. The sway of magic makes witches unstable - increases their destructive tendencies, according to Shinigami-sama.'

Edwards's eyes narrowed slightly. 'Who's this Shinigami guy?'

'He's the Grim Reaper. He runs Shibusen and controls Death City. You know,' she continued, seeing his nonplussed face 'he's a Death God.'

'A God, huh.' Edward leaned forwards, glossy eyes fixed on his clasped hands as though he were not really seeing them. 'Last time I met a God, he was trying to destroy everything I loved, so I punched him in the face.'

'Oh hey!' Maka brightened. 'Me too!'

'Huh?'

She shrugged. 'You know the Kishin?' Ed shook his head. 'The Demon God? Well anyway, he had pretty much used madness to take over the world and drive everyone into insanity, so I punched him and he exploded in a flash of light.' It was probably best to leave out the roles Black*Star and Kid had played in weakening Asura first. For storytelling purposes.

'When was this exactly?' Ed was suddenly sitting up straight again, listening curiously.

'Last Spring, why?'

Ed pressed his hand against his chin before thoughtfully replying. 'Weird. That's around the same time I defeated Father.'

'You know,' said Maka slowly, 'come to think of it, I'd never heard of a place called Amestris until after that battle. I don't remember reading about it at all in any book before then either, although it's certainly mentioned in them now.'

'Strange. I don't remember hearing about Death City until afterwards as well. It's like, such great explosions of energy might have set off some sort of, I dunno, dual reaction or –'

'A collision of parallel universes, maybe?'

'It could be, or perhaps the Gate created by Amestris somehow devoured this world.'

'Or maybe I never beat Asura, and this is all just an insanity-induced illusion!'

'What!' Ed looked offended. 'I am not an illusion!'

'I'm just saying, it's a possibility.'

'Well, I don't think –'

'Hey Ed, Ed!' Winry was running towards them, with (Maka noted with displeasure) Soul's elbow clutched firmly in her hands. 'Look at what Soul can do,' she gushed. 'Isn't it just amazing? I've never seen anything like it before, it's like automail combined with transmutation, it's unbelievable!'

'It's not that great.' said Soul sheepishly.

'But it is! It's incredible! I mean, I'd heard about this from other people, but seeing it! If I could just study it, I could bring back new ideas for more innovative automail – it doesn't hurt for you to transform at all, does it?' Soul shook his head confusedly. 'See what I mean? If we bring back these techniques, automail would become much more accessible to the average person, with shorter recovery times and lower costs, which means more customers, which means –'

'I don't see it.' Ed and Maka were standing up now, and Ed sounded strangely grumpy.

'Oh.' Winry turned to Soul. 'Would you mind?'

Soul motioned for her to step back, and with a (slightly unnecessary) flourish, his arm began to glow bright blue, twisting out into a long spike before smoothing to become an elegant curve. With a sound like a knife being sharpened, the blue light vanished, leaving behind the red and black metal of Soul's scythe blade.

Judging from the look of shock on Ed's face, they mustn't have Weapons in Amestris.

'But that's – that's - ' Ed's mouth opened and closed for a few moments without making a noise, before he finally said: 'Winry, that's Human Transmutation! Someone must have performed an experiment on him or – or maybe he did it himself or -'

'What are you talking about?' A flash of blue light and Soul's arm had reappeared again. 'There weren't any experiments or anything, I was born this way.'

Ed looked suspicious.

'Soul has Weapon blood in his family, being able to transform into a scythe is just a trait he inherited, like his eye or hair color,' Maka explained. 'It's definitely not a case of Human Transmutation.'

'You know about Human Transmutation?' Ed still seemed surprised, but was slightly calmer.

'Sure,' Maka shrugged, 'when I found all these new books about Amestris in the library, I tried to read as much as I could.'

'So there is a library round here! I was starting to get –'

'Riiiight,' Winry broke in. 'Well, as interesting as I'm sure this conversation is going to be, Soul and I are going to go back to check out his bike.'

Ed snorted and muttered 'Machine geek.'

'Nerd.' Winry shot back.

As they started to walk off, Maka could hear Soul saying: 'So you reckon you can modify the engine to that extent? I mean, I've asked around and everyone I've spoken to seems to think it'd destabilize the whole thing –'

'People these days just don't have enough imagination!'

'Whatever.' Ed slumped back down onto the bench. 'The bike's not that cool. There aren't even any flames on it.'

'He speeds enough already on that thing,' Maka grumbled. 'He doesn't need encouragement!'

'Anyway. You were saying that there's a library round here?' Ed grinned. 'I get kinda restless if I don't have anything to do for a couple of days.'

'There is one, but it's only accessible by Shibusen staff and students.' Maka smoothed out the back of her skirt and sat down. 'What are really good are the second hand bookshops on Vieuxtome Lane – they're really cheap too! Only –' she stopped and narrowed her eyes, anger making her clench her fists in an effort not to raise her voice 'I've been banned from most of them.'

Ed looked surprised. 'How come?'

'I made the mistake of taking my _father_,' she spat out the word 'to some of them with me. Turns out, he had had _encounters_ with a number of women there. They were so angry that I'm now forbidden to even set foot in any of them! How's that fair?'

'Trust me, I understand shitty fathers. Mine ditched me and my brother when we were just kids, then had the gall to show up nearly a decade later and try to reconnect.'

'Yeah? Mine thought that an appropriate gift for his 14-year-old daughter was a pair of sexy underwear and a copy of the Karma Sutra.'

Ed sighed. 'I guess mine didn't turn out to be too shitty in the end.'

'In the end?' Maka asked tentatively, her stomach sinking slightly.

'Oh yeah, he's dead now – but don't worry!' he said hastily, seeing her expression 'He lived for, like, ten thousand years or something. Had a good life, saved the world in the end, whatever.'

Maka sighed as well. 'Mine isn't actually that bad either. I know he loves me.' Her face darkened. 'He declares it often enough. It's just that he has no clue about me at all, and I still can't forgive him for how he treated Mama.'

'I know how you feel.' They were silent for a moment, before Ed asked abruptly, 'Got any brothers or sisters?'

The question threw her. 'No, why?'

'Just wondering.'

'I didn't really grow up alone, if that's what you're thinking. I've always kind of just lived at Shibusen, so I knew all the teachers and a lot of the older students. And Black*Star.'

'Who?'

'Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough. Everyone does eventually.'

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching Winry fiddling with the engine of Soul's bike as Soul leaned against the wall, casually talking to her, occasionally passing her a tool when she asked for it. They seemed fairly at ease with one another, even though Maka knew that Soul could be pretty gruff with strangers. Every now and then Winry would pop up and grasp Soul's arm, looking it over in amazement. She didn't quite seem able to believe that the solid metal could completely transform into normal flesh and muscle without any side effects.

Ed suddenly started. 'Crap, what time is it?'

'Around 6, I think.' Maka watched him enquiringly. 'Why?'

'The hotel we're staying in has a 6:30 curfew.'

'Yeah, there's a curfew on Death City because of some pre-kishin that's wandering round killing everyone after dark.'

'What?'

'Like a monster. It's cool, Soul and I are taking care of it tonight. The curfew should be over by tomorrow.'

Ed smiled slightly. 'I keep forgetting that I don't have my alchemy anymore. I was all ready to go out and handle that monster by myself. We'd better get going. Winry!' He turned to his girlfriend and yelled at the top of his lungs. 'We're going!'

'What!' Maka discovered that Winry had an equally loud voice. 'I'm just getting started!'

'We're gonna get locked out of the hotel! Anyway,' he looked at Maka questioningly, 'we can always come back tomorrow?'

'Sure. It was interesting talking to you.'

'Same here. Winry! Come on!'

'Alright, alright! Jeez, so impatient!'

After they said their goodbyes, Soul and Maka watched the others walk down the street from their apartment building's doorway. They seemed to argue the whole way. As they turned to walk inside, Maka asked: 'So what did you two talk about?'

'This and that,' said Soul. 'Mainly about the bike. What about you guys?'

'This and that,' Maka echoed, mainly just to annoy him. 'Nothing that great.'


End file.
